The Kenyan Demon Debate

A remote Kikuyu village in Kenya have been in uproar recently over a neighbouring village’s claims that their livestock is possessed by demons with telepathic abilities. This flood of worry has coincided with a new technological initiative in the village, which has seen the installation of a telephone mast, and has provided each adult in the community with a smartphone. The scheme was sponsored by the Canadian technology company, Kik Interactive, who pre-installed each phone with their popular app, Kik Messenger. The community created a large group conversation on the messenger app wherein they discussed various methods of exorcising the possessed livestock, which mainly consisted of female sheep; the most popular suggestion was to physically attack the creature unaware, so as to jolt the demon from the host. Unfortunately, the rudimentary telephone mast was far too inefficient for the number of people that were provided smartphones, leading to potential waiting times of 10 minutes just to send one user’s message to the others. The Kikuyu people were eager to discuss the issue, so they happily would wait for long periods of time, staring at their phone screens, waiting for their turn to contribute to the debate.